Part 4: Out of the Frying Pan
by FerretKid
Summary: Just helping a friend run an errand. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

I do not, nor will I, ever own the rights to any characters owned by Davis/Panzer. I'm borrowing Methos for a short bit and promise to return him unharmed.

**Canon Note:** After "Through A Glass Darkly" and before "Judgement Day."

* * *

**Out of the Frying Pan…**

* * *

"I just need a ride to the shop so I can pick up my car, it's not like it's going to be a big deal. Just picking up a car!"

"Right. And since when is anything "just" with you?"

"I'm sorry, Mac had an appointment and nobody in my building owns their own car. Adam, please - "

"I'll be there in two hours."

"Thank y -" Amy stared at the handset, surprised by the abrupt hang up. Perhaps she had made a mistake calling Adam, but the shop wasn't exactly convenient to the Metro, and getting a cab to take her into the neighborhood would have involved more persuading and paying than she was interested in dealing with at the moment.

But now, standing on the sidewalk, waiting for Adam to show, Amy felt her stomach clench and wondered if she shouldn't have just taken the Metro. They weren't yelling at each other, they were able to be around each other if and when they both happened to be around Mac, but to Amy it felt like walking on eggshells, afraid she'd say the wrong thing at any given time and she really didn't know what to do to make that feeling go away.

Methos' Volvo pulled over to the curb and stopped with a jerk. Amy's stomach clenched again and she swallowed past her suddenly dry mouth. She kept her eyes on the ground while climbing in and pulled out a piece of paper. "The address. It's not the best area…"

"I figured."

Amy risked a glance sideways and saw the corner of his mouth twitch. She felt some of the tension across her shoulders ease.

"Little late for most repair shops isn't it?" He pulled away from the curb and paused at the corner.

"This one's special. They cater to a crowd that prefers odd hours."

"Why am I not surprised?" Methos muttered and turned out onto the main road.

"It's just about being discreet," Amy smiled.

"What did you have added to the little junker?"

"Actually it just broke. Clutch went out and these guys do great work."

When they reached the correct street Methos parked where Amy pointed. The setting sun threw a few orange and red rays down the street, leaving deep shadows between the buildings. Random bits of debris skittered along, pushed by the breeze. The old industrial area suited a barely-legal business, being warehouses and small factories abandoned years ago.

"Are you sure they knew you were coming? Everything is closed up."

"Yeah, I made arrangements. Promised I'd lock everything back up." Amy hopped out and started across the street, angling to go a distance further down the block than where she had told him to pull over.

"Why didn't you have me park down there? I could have dropped you at -" Methos stopped mid sentence. Amy had disappeared from his side and now stood in the narrow gap between two buildings, staring into the gloom, fists clenched, eyes narrowed. "Amy?"

"Huh? Oh, sorry, thought I heard something." She hurried to catch up to Methos, her eyes scanning the roofs down the row of warehouses.

"I'm not the one that knows where we're going, you know."

"Sorry, it's the blue doors. Two more buildings down." She glanced back over her shoulder.

"What is wrong with you?"

"It's not right." She paused again and turned a circle, carefully scanning each rooftop before turning the other direction and peering into the spaces close by.

"What?"

"Something's not quite right." She stepped through the broken overhead doorway of the next building. A faded sign across the top declared it to have been a foundry at one point in time, but now only the remains of equipment littered the space, industrial ghosts rusting in the elements. The ceiling lay half open to the elements; pieces of it fallen to the floor in pieces and piles. Massive support pillars marched in order from front to back, refusing to admit most of the load they bore had vanished. Down the center of the room, a hole surrounded by rusted railing opened onto a lower level, where the casting molds would have stood as molten steel poured down from above. "I'm getting a - There they are."

"I knew it!"

Four shapes appeared at the other end of the building, stepping through another broken door which mirrored the front. Behind them, abandoned train cars rusted on the long-disused track. Three males, one female, each stood an arm's span apart, waiting. She didn't have to enter, but to turn and run was not an option. Not for Amy. She strode in until she stood halfway between the doors and the pit, assuming Methos had followed. "What do you figure the structural integrity of this place is?

"What?"

"Do you think it could survive a small earthquake?"

"Amy, what are you -"

She slipped out of her shoes and pushed her sleeves above her elbows. "You'd better get out of here."

"They're not Immortal. Why should I?"

"They're telepaths with no idea and no care who or what you are. Get out of here."

"How do you even know what -"

"Call it bad vibes, okay? I don't have time for this!"

"It's four on one!"

"Feel sorry for them, not me." She bent her knees, flexed her fingers, and Methos felt a tingling in the air. "Look, it's about to get like a tornado in here and I don't know that I can fight four of them and shield both of us at the same time. Get."

"What does that have -"

She heaved a sigh and spared a quick glare at Methos. "Are you willing to take the chance of regenerating in front of telepaths that do not have our best interests in mind?" Amy used her toes to push aside crumbled concrete until she had flat floor, not debris, beneath her feet.

"Good point." Methos began to back away carefully, his eyes never leaving the group waiting at the other end.

"I know." Amy planted her feet in the dirt and shifted into a ready stance. No chance to surprise the others now, but they had also lost their ability to catch her unprepared. It would all balance out.

Methos walked backwards until he reached the front doors. He then slid sideways along the wall until a sizable piece of equipment covered in ceiling debris and paper trash gave him cover.

Amy twisted the balls of her feet in the dirt again, drawing energy into herself, preparing for whatever would be thrown at her. The first wave came as a psychic assault from the woman, a wave of noise and voices that began as a low murmur in the back of her mind and probably would have built to a maddening cacophony of noise, but she had expected the opening to salvo and brushed it aside with less effort than squashing an obnoxious bug. The shortest man, standing about five and a half feet tall, took a step forward to throw the second punch, such as it was. To Amy's eyes the attack looked like a cone of colored light coming at her, a vortex centered at his chest. She threw up a physical shield as a precaution and made her mental shields a wall, not the usual river. With an effort she turned the attack aside and drew more power in, preparing for the next assault.

The four weren't entirely stupid, Amy decided. Two failed attacks and they quickly changed from the light, probing attacks and went for full-on assault. As one, they sent a powerful wave of a four-pronged mental assault and began firing the semi-automatic pistols they pulled from holsters under their jackets. With a flick of her physical shield, the bullets fell to the floor and she tried to quickly switch focus back to the psychic attack buzzing through her skull like a swarm of mosquitos, searching for any weakness in her mental shields. Amy flinched as the buzz grew to a near deafening level. Four different wavelengths of attack and four guns were apparently her limit. She gritted her teeth, flexed her arms, and pushed back with physical and mental shields at the same time, trying to at least drop the buzzing to a background hum while she sent bullets flying wildly back at her attackers.

The telepaths doubled down. With their clips empty, they dropped their guns and poured all their focus into breaking through her shields. They split up so they no longer stood four abreast, stepping around in a wide arc, trying to pull her focus too far apart to mount an effective defense. To Amy, defending against a mental assault was preferable to maintaining shields against flying bullets and she thanked heaven they hadn't thought to attempt the flanking move until their clips had emptied, but being on the defensive at all was unacceptable.

And then the pieces of concrete, trash, bits of metal and even pieces of broken machinery began to fly. A cloud of dust and dross writhed in front of her, small pieces managed to occasionally pepper her scalp and back, making it around the shields as Amy warded off the larger, dangerous rubble. A chance piece of concrete and iron made it past the shields and slammed into her shoulder, numbing her arm down to the fingers. If it came to hand-to-hand combat, she would have a decided disadvantage immediately.

One of her attackers had the gift of telekinesis and Amy wanted to curse, but couldn't waste the time or breath. She tried to redirect the flying waste back to her attackers, but couldn't split her energy in three directions. Protecting herself from the mental barrage and creating a shield didn't leave her enough power to rip debris from someone else's control, let alone send it flying back at them. She managed a few weak pushes, shoving the smaller things away, but it wasn't enough. As she prepared to release the physical shields and channel that energy into an attack, a piece of railing came flying from behind, hitting her across the shoulders and forcing Amy to stagger a few steps before catching herself.

With a primal yell, she pulled in a surge of energy and pushed her physical shields out in an arc, a battering ram of willpower and a hope to knock her nameless foes down. With a moment to breathe, she checked to make sure her arm hadn't been broken and made a decision. She would put a dome of shield around herself, stop focusing on mental shields, and attack like a berserker. If she were fast enough, she could take the four down before their telepathic attacks overpowered her.

Except for the pulley flying at her head - a massive piece from the overhead crane - which she avoided only by diving to the floor.

"That's it! I'm done playing your game!" Amy screamed and her voice rattled what little glass remained in the windows. She stood again and ground her feet against the floor, reaching through the concrete for the energy flowing through the earth beneath her. Amy pulled in so much, she glowed blue from her toes to her head and her hair flared out like a halo. The team of four had already regained their feet and prepared themselves. The woman pulled another pistol out and started firing. Amy raised a shield and the bullets ricocheted away once more. The tallest of the four - taller than any of her brothers - let loose with a yell that echoed through the warehouse and battered her mental shields like a pile driver. The walls groaned, old fixtures swayed, and crushing pressure built behind her eyes.

Amy sacrificed her physical shield to add another layer of psychic shields around her innermost core and got hit by several rusty bolts swirling around, courtesy of the telekinetic. With another scream, she used raw force to push the vortex of detritus across the warehouse, letting the giant's attack batter her mind in exchange for being able to usurp control of the materials.

She braced her legs, clenched her fists, and focused every bit of energy and will she had on the floor and ceiling. Slower than she wished, she could feel the concrete surrounding her move. Too slowly. Darkness gathered at the edges of her vision while pinpoints of light popped behind her eyes. A concentrated wave of pain slammed against her, the four in a simultaneous mental attack with all their abilities. Amy switched her focus to the four and a wind tore through the warehouse, picking them up and throwing them back to the far side from where they had appeared. Sound, light, and pain exploded through her mind, her shields wavered but she couldn't let go just yet. She focused on the building again.

Massive support beams creaked, cracks running across their surfaces. They swayed and collapsed. Too much had been asked of them in the last ten minutes. They could no longer carry the load of the building after the battering they had taken and Amy only had to nudge them and suggest they give out. The back half of the foundry collapsed in a cloud of metal, glass, and dirt exploding in all directions.

And Amy heard nothing but the sudden quiet in her head.

She collapsed to the floor.

* * *

In the shadow of the faded yellow machine, Methos hoped "out of sight, out of mind" applied to the four Amy faced across the expanse of the old foundry. He allowed a small smile as he noticed a pale glow at her feet, so pale as to be invisible except in the shadow Amy cast. What ever was to come, he found it amusing to think those Amy faced had no idea what was about to happen to them.

He watched her crouch, muscles tense, and stare across the building. It seemed like everyone stood still for minutes - an eternity when fighting. Amy's fingers twitched, she flinched sideways, one hand flicked, but no other action betrayed the ensuing conflict.

And then the guns came out.

He bent down and pushed himself forward at the same time the four began firing, heading for Amy, intending to force her out of the way, since she was too stupid to move on her own. He stopped himself by dropping to the floor, flat on his face, when the realization hit that his assumption was stupid. Against the shadows of the building beyond, he could see pale flashes of light as bullets became trapped in an invisible shield and then bounced away in random directions as Amy's hands snapped in small motions. Methos scrambled back feeling like a fool.

The firing stopped short and Methos shifted so he could peek out. A movement caught his eye. Across the building, deep in the shadows under a catwalk, Methos spied another person slipping around piles of refuse and broken tools, clearly angling for a line of sight at Amy's back. He inched around the machine for more concealment, watching to make sure he wasn't noticed and froze when a surprised grunt and muttered curse reached his ears.

Another. Of course there would be a sixth coming from the other side. And by the sound of it, they were only inches away, their view of him blocked by the slimmest chance. Methos held his breath, waited for the shuffling to move a little further away, and prayed the sixth's attention would be too focused on Amy to notice him. He reached into his trench coat and pulled out his gun before poking his head up, feeling too much like a scared rabbit for his liking. He spotted number six's back, and aimed.

Amy screamed something unintelligible, Methos fired, and the sixth attacker dropped like a felled tree, a neat entry wound in the back of her head. Methos ducked back behind his cover, jumped back to his original position, and desperately searched for the fifth, last seen all the way across the building.


	2. Chapter 2

Boots scuffed on the crumbled concrete floor and stopped. "Dammit, Adam," Amy panted still on her knees, "I told you to get out of here! What if I hadn't been able to hold my shields against all of them? What if you'd been shot?"

"What, indeed?" Methos set his mouth in a hard line and tucked his hand gun away into his trench coat, a small gesture, really, but enough to startle her. Then and only then did she notice the body sprawled on the ground between them. Amy glanced from it, to Methos, and back to the body. A gun lay on the ground where it had fallen. A gun that would have been used on her before she'd have realized what was coming.

Her anger left like the rush of air released from a balloon. "Oh."

"Yes, oh. Twice." He pointed across the building to another form sprawled beside a fallen slag bucket. "If you can't watch your own back any better than that, how have you managed to live this long?"

"I - I…" She shut her mouth, knowing there was no excuse. Not really. She'd been put through multi-attacker situations before and hadn't made such an egregious error. Either she was slipping from lack of practice, or - She shoved the thought aside for later and stooped down by the body, verifying a point of curiosity.

"No sense in us being here when the police show up," Methos tried to hurry her along.

Amy groaned and tried to stand back up. "Worse. Metaphysically, that was about as subtle as an atomic bomb test. And their bosses are probably close."

"Come on, then." Methos dropped her arm around his neck, wrapped his arm around her back and lifted. With a half carry, half drag, he hurried back to the car. The were two friends out for a stroll in the damp afternoon. In an abandoned industrial zone. Perfectly normal. Ignore the fact that the small chick couldn't walk three feet on her own. This was not connected to the six bodies back there, not at all. He helped her into the passenger seat before hurrying to his side and climbing in.

"Amy?"

"Hmm?"

"Little distracted?" Methos paused at the corner with a quick scan for oncoming cars. Less to stay out of a wreck than to look for unwelcome company on the street.

"No."

"Right. What's going on?"

"It's been a long time since I've dealt with an attack like that, that's all."

"Anybody you know?"

"Remember that attention I'd gotten, before breaking into your place?" Amy waited for Methos' nod. "Them, I'm sure."

He blew a soft whistle.

"Yeah." She sighed. "You asked once how many people were like my brothers and me? They weren't half breeds, but that's what it looks like sometimes when somebody's got diluted blood from the old magic-users. I'm not ready to leave Paris again, but if they found me… I wonder…"

"Wonder what?" Methos looked over his shoulder and smoothly merged onto the autoroute.

"If I'll have nightmares again," she whispered before catching herself and saying what she had meant to say. "How they knew this time. It's not like I've been sending up signal flares."

"Come to my place."

"What?"

"Stay at my flat tonight. We'll stay up all night, drink beer, and share war stories. No sleep, no bad dreams!"

Amy laughed and caught the flash of smile on Methos' face. And there it was, was it? Trust? Were they finally, finally back to before?

"How did you know they were telepaths?"

"Huh?"

"You really better not be alone for a while. How did you know that they," he jerked his head back in the general direction they had left, "were telepaths?"

"They were… How to explain it? I could feel them kind of poking and prodding at my head when we got close. And at least one of them was actually projecting. Rather loudly. They really must not have been well trained or prepared."

"They were able to keep you on the defense. And two got behind you."

"No, I mean…" Amy struggled to explain. "It's not… Having four of them combining mental and physical attacks was smart. I don't care how powerful people are, defending both fronts is difficult and exhausting. Keeping two more back was smart. Yeah, they were prepared in that way. If they hadn't been so obvious with their presence, I would have been caught by surprise and been in a lot of trouble from the get go."

Methos stared at Amy for several seconds, his jaw slack.

"I'm glad you didn't leave. Thank you," Amy said before hunching down in her seat and closing her eyes.


	3. Chapter 3

"Ouch!"

"You want an infection? Hold still."

"What is that crap you're smearing all over me?"

"It's just your arm. Stop whining like a baby."

Amy stuck her tongue out at Methos before gritting her teeth and swallowing the words she really wanted to yell. After all, it was hardly Adam's fault she had been smacked by random flying objects, and he had certainly had not thrown them himself. It wasn't his fault she couldn't fight a physical and psychic battle at the same time. She didn't need to take her frustration out on him. They hadn't been inside his place two minutes before he had disappeared and reappeared holding a couple of unlabeled bottles and a bag of cotton balls. He was right, though. The piece of old concrete floor hadn't just numbed her arm, it had given her a couple of puncture wounds and deep scratches with its uneven surface. So, at his insistence, she had taken her shirt off and sat in her armor while he smeared something greasy and slightly stinky on and around the wounds.

"Show me your back."

"Do what?"

"Don't tell me you only got hit once. Let me see your back."

"Armor. It's fine. The worst was my arm."

"I'm sure it is."

"Yup." She crossed her arms and stared him down.

Since he couldn't see anything more than a few bruises forming, Methos gave up and carried his kit back to the bathroom. From there he went into the kitchen and stared in the fridge - not a Coke to be had. "I don't have Coke. How about a beer? Amy?" Methos twisted slightly to see what absorbed her attention so fully she hadn't responded. Apparently it had something to do with falling asleep on his couch, head back, mouth open.

* * *

Amy awoke with a small jerk and the idea she had been afraid a moment ago. She lay on a soft bed, surrounded by pillows and blankets as if she'd been tucked into a perfect-sized nest. Methos sat in a chair a few feet away, reading. "This seems a little familiar."

"Little. But you have your clothes on and my flat is in one piece." Amy groaned and Methos laughed.

"Good point. How long did I nap?"

"Nap? About sixteen hours."

"Guess that wasn't a nap."

"Hungry?"

"Well I am now." Amy stretched but really did not want to leave the comfort of the warm blankets and soft mattress.

"Any bad dreams?"

"No." She saw Methos's eyebrow twitch and ignored it. What did it matter if he didn't believe her? Did he really need to know? And why was he sitting by the bed, anyway? She pushed the thought away and curled herself into as small as space as possible.

Methos stood and stretched his neck. "If you want, borrow anything you can find in the closet. I'll get something for you to eat."

"Thank you." After Methos walked out, Amy forced herself out of the bed, to his closet, then down to the shower.

In under twenty minutes she made her way into the kitchen, wearing one of his baggiest sweaters, belted into a short dress with the sleeves rolled to fit her arms. So long as she didn't leave the flat - and was very careful how she moved and sat - it would work well enough until she could get to her own clothes. Methos handed her a bottle of beer and a plate piled high and then left her alone. She stood in the kitchen to eat watching him across the room as he added notations in a small leather bound book. His famous journals.

"So," she started awkwardly after a couple bites, "anything new in research?"

"Not really. I have to keep as low a profile as I can right now. They'll get over being mad at my extended leave soon enough, but there's something else going on around there I can't put my finger on just yet. Very tense."

"Doesn't sound ideal."

"What about you? Are you planning on heading back to the States?"

"Yeah. My contract with the symphony is up and I wrapped a new security contract two nights ago. As soon as I deliver the report, I need to head back home."

"Pressing cow duties?"

"Yeah." Then she caught the twinkle in his eyes. "Har, har."

"You can't expect -" The phone interrupted them abruptly, shrilly and rudely demanding attention.

"Wait, what?" The phone pressed against his ear, Methos stared across the room at Amy, as if she could help him understand what she couldn't hear. "I don't…what? There's got to be a mix up. But that doesn't make sense!"

Amy watched his face, emotions crossing in a confused march across his face as he listened to the voice on the phone, growing more alarmed herself.

"No, she's actually here. Yeah. We'll be there when we can."

He hadn't settled the handset in it's cradle before Amy was at his side, demanding to know what was going on.

"Relax, it's got to be nothing," he tried to reassure her, but his voice carried a poorly-hidden note of worry that ratcheted her concern up a good two hundred percent. "But Joe just got kidnapped. Here. In Paris."


End file.
